


Sometimes it’s OK to be sad

by Walkinrobe



Series: So Dramatic [7]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-29 20:04:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18301037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walkinrobe/pseuds/Walkinrobe
Summary: November 2023Life isn’t always happy.An angstsy time between their second and third sons (James and Oliver).But they’ll be OK.*‘Tommy, no more talking. It’s not helping right now, Kiddo,’ she instructs in a sharp voice.They finally pull into their driveway. She thinks she may have averted disaster.But Thomas doesn’t stop talking. Of course he doesn’t. He has the same big heart as his Daddy and he thinks he is taking care of his Mom, thinks he is helping by disclosing how he was complicit in the household machinations while Scott was away.So their eldest son delivers the sucker punch. Straight to his father’s heart.She can see it coming but is helpless to stop it.





	Sometimes it’s OK to be sad

**Author's Note:**

> I know miscarriage is a very sensitive topic for many people. 
> 
> So please proceed with caution.
> 
> In their honest, straightforward way these characters do not skirt around the issues. 
> 
> Big love to all those who’ve had a real life experience similar to these fictional characters. I have too.
> 
> This isn’t very long, I didn’t think it needed to be. 
> 
> xox

‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!’ Thomas and James call, running towards him in the airport arrivals hall. He scoops them up, one in each arm, kisses their magical little faces, then plops them back on the ground. My kids are the world’s two best kids, he unilaterally decides. 

‘I missed my boys,’ he tells them as he scruffs the hair of each son. ‘Did you both grow taller while I was away?’ he chuckles. The boys stand tall, five year old Thomas with his hands ridged by his sides and two year old James copying his big brother. 

He spies her standing behind them, watching the scene unfold with a smile on her face. 

‘I think I missed you most of all’ he says to her, it’s a slightly inaccurate reference to the Wizard of Oz. They’d watched it with the boys the night before he left.

He squeezes her hand and kisses her once, twice, three times on the mouth. ‘Love you, Virtch’. He is looking forward to giving her more than a chaste kiss when they get home.

‘Great to be back with my little family,’ he declares as he hoists his bag over his shoulder. ‘Who missed me?’ he teases. His boys jump up and down like little frogs claiming ‘Me, me, me!’

Something is off with Tess. He tilts his head at her, silently asking what’s up? 

She comes forward, cups his face and kisses him again, softly and sweetly. ‘Love you right back, Moir. I’m so glad you’re home’ she states. 

‘Me too, Sweetheart’.

*  


The boys chatter inanely on the walk to the car.

Scott asks them lots of questions about what they’ve been up to while he’s been away. He tells them about how fast his plane went and of a huge construction site he passed. He’s such a great dad.

She’s quiet. 

*

James has fallen asleep in the car and they’re about halfway home when Thomas shares a very pertinent piece of information.

‘Daddy, Mommy did lots of crying in the bathroom when you were away’. 

The hairs on his arm stand up.

Serendipitously, the traffic signal in front of them turns red. He pulls up to a stop and turns to look at her.

He draws out a slow ‘No’. 

She nods her head almost imperceptibly.

‘Sweetheart’ he responds in a strangled voice. 

She nods again. He reaches out to touch her face. She turns into his touch, rubbing her face against his hand. She looks at him with her sad green eyes and mouths the words ‘I love you’.

He can see the tears as they start coursing down her cheeks and she turns away, keeping her face to the front so Thomas can’t see her crying.

The lights turn green.

‘That’s My Girl’ is playing on the radio, they danced to it light years ago. 

He puts his hand on her thigh and she grabs it tightly. 

‘When?’ he asks softly.

‘Late Friday night’.

He’s been gone since Wednesday. It’s Sunday afternoon. 

‘Why didn’t you call me? I could have been back here in three hours’, he implores.

‘I know, I know. I needed you. I wish I did. I ignorantly thought this was a fast process and it’d be all over before you could get back’ she croaks. 

‘And it isn’t?’

‘No’ her voice breaks as she speaks. It’s like a dagger is twisting inside his chest. He wishes he wasn’t driving this fucking car. 

‘I don’t know how this works. Are you in pain?’

She drops her shoulders in a resigned admission and gives a small nod.

‘Oh Tessie’ he gasps, squeezing her hand. It’s a throwback to a rarely used nickname. The one he reserves for special situations. Situations like this one, where he discovers his girl is miscarrying, right here and now, while sitting beside him in his car. Fuck me. His nervous system has kicked into fight or flight mode.

‘Have you called Dr Moens?’ he asks.

‘I saw her yesterday at the hospital. I just have to go through the motions. It’s fine. It’s manageable. I’m fine’.

He thinks there is absolutely nothing that is fucking fine about this shitshow. And besides, he doesn’t want the love of his life living her life in a state of ‘fine’.

He knows she wants to give him some consolation or comfort. ‘It’s OK, it’s better than it was yesterday’, she says quietly. 

He thinks what she’s telling him is only a partial lie. 

‘What are you guys talking about?’ Tommy pipes up from the backseat.

‘It’s OK mate, Mommy’s not feeling so hot right now. I’m working out how to make her feel better’.

‘I know’ Thomas says matter-of-factually. ‘Mommy was vomiting last night’.

He has known her a long, long time and he is very well aware that vomiting is a tell that her pain threshold has been tipped into ‘I’m not coping anymore’.

‘Geez Tess, fuuuuuuuuck’, he hisses in a desperate whisper and she knows it’s a mixture of heartbreak and helplessness.

In misplaced helpfulness Thomas wades back into the conversation ‘Daddy, she vomited this morning too’. 

They’re waiting at the stop sign at the end of their street. Scott sighs a long, sad sigh then rests his head against the steering wheel in a sign of, well, he doesn’t really know what. Resignation? Disbelief? A plea for the ability to turn the clock back to Friday night? 

*

‘Tommy, no more talking. It’s not helping right now, Kiddo,’ she instructs in a sharp voice. 

They finally pull into their driveway. She thinks she may have averted disaster.

But Thomas doesn’t stop talking. Of course he doesn’t. He has the same big heart as his Daddy and he thinks he is taking care of his Mom, thinks he is helping by disclosing how he was complicit in the household machinations while Scott was away.

So their eldest son delivers the sucker punch. Straight to his father’s heart. 

She can see it coming but is helpless to stop it.

‘And Daddy, I was such a good helper to Mommy. She a nose bleed in her bed. I didn’t see it but I helped her put your bed sheets in the washing machine. There was soooooooo much blood’, he says with all the discretion a five year old can muster.

She physically crumples into her seat. Fuck, no, fuck, nooooooooo. This can’t be happening via the mouth of their son.

But it is. And it’s happening in slow motion. 

‘Thomas. Be quiet!’’ she chastises as the practicalities of her miscarriage are exposed to the father of her lost baby. 

She desperately wanted to protect Scott from those intimate details. 

She groans and covers her mouth with her hand. She feels the hopelessness flow all the way to her toes.

Scott turns to look at her with a look of devastating comprehension, his eyebrows at his hairline and his eyes like saucepans. 

‘Tess-a’ he breathes. She can only remember him using her full name once in the past ten years. 

‘What? Oh my God, I... I... you... didn’t... I think I’m gonna be sick’ he says.

‘Daddy, not you too!’ says Tommy. If it wasn’t such a horrendous moment it might be have been funny.

James wakes. ‘Boys you can stay in the car. Mommy, I would really like you to get out with me,’ he instructs.

*

Somehow he’s around her side of the car before she even stands up. 

He closes her car door so the boys can’t hear them talk. He carefully takes her hand and leads her to the back of the car, so the boys can’t see them either.

He leans against the car and puts his arms around her gently, one around her waist, the other up her back with his hand in her hair, holding her head. He draws her to his chest, just like he’s done a thousand times before. Although never like this.

She bursts into tears and sobs long, hard cries in his ear.

‘I love you so very, very much. You know that, right?’ he asks gently and he increases the pressure of his embrace. ‘We’re just gonna stand here together for as long as we need’. And they do.

Once she raises her head from his shoulder he speaks, ‘I wish you hadn’t been here alone. It breaks my heart that you were coping with this by yourself’.

He kisses her cheek tenderly, ‘You’re so brave to have handled all this without me. But that’s not how we usually do things, eh? We do things as an ‘us’. I’m here now and from this point forward we’re going to do this together’.

She looks into his eyes, shudders and give a nod. ‘I just want to fall asleep in your arms’ she says. 

*

He’s such a good man. She is so glad he is home so they can share the heartache. She has no doubt that he will take care of her. But she wants to take care of him too. This isn’t about her. It’s about them. So she wraps her arms around his neck and tells him so. While their boys chatter to each other in the car they stand quietly talking about what’s happened in the last seventy-hours. They talk about how life and plans have changed and about how they’ll have to break this news to their families. But mostly they just talk about a little soul, who they created together, that has been lost from this world.

And at the end of their discussion he takes her hand and says something to her that’s so ‘him’. Something simple and honest and, despite the content of his statement, it gives her confidence that’s they’re going to be OK. 

*

‘Sweetheart, I’m sad this baby won’t be joining our family’.

And it’s his turn to cry.

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone alright?
> 
> Was that OK? 
> 
> Have scared you all off? 
> 
> Please let me know.


End file.
